#no one does it like Kanesha

[alexissara]

The Iconic Matriarch

[Art by Kanesha Bryant from Thirsty Sword Lesbians: Advanced Lovers and Lesbians]

The Matriarch in Thirsty Sword Lesbians is one of my artistic prides and joys. I've created lots of comics, short stories and worked on several games. The Matriarch to me is a design stand out. I want to talk about the design of that playbook more specifically sometime but instead I just want to talk about the iconic for the playbook here. The iconic here is an AU version of my OC Jillain Owlnight. Jill originated as a NPC character in a roleplay that was the adoptive mother of one of my partners OCs. I really loved her and so did she. Jillian was a lawyer who did her best to help people, she was a scrapy woman in independent practice and single just doing her best. Still she was wise, she loved magical stuff, was a big fan of birds and was did her best by her new kid.

She recurred in some other roleplays as a mother figure as a staple wink and a nod or as someone's lawyer. Eventually though, she was brought into Love Beyond The Holy Light, which was a webnovel I had been working on for a while as a powerful witch with an affinity for owls, a POV character and the mother of another POV character. This fantasy version of her was probably my most in-depth dive into her as a character. This and the following modern roleplay really finished the refinement of what this character was.

Jillian is a trans woman who lived a really hard life with bad parents, runs away from home and has fend for herself or is taken in by some magical bird, either way she is living a fairly different life than other kids. She gets a lot of skills because she needs to be all around good to survive and the lesbian falls in love with a girl, typically after years there is a sad break up, she goes through a flop era and gets her shit together when there is a kid in need that she had to care for. From there on Jill is a mega mom, she does everything for her kids and tries her best to make the world a better place. Maybe she slips up at one point, sells her morals for the kids safety or comfort but eventually turns around to do right by her kids.

Which brings us to this iconic AU version of Jillian. I wanted a version of her to do something new with less baggage. I think I said to just warrior her up at first but I was asked to provide a bit more detail and I suggested a bit more of a Sci-fiy kind of vibe. Kanesha then used the very little guidance to make this master piece. I don't know what they intended but clearly they took inspiration form the playbook too, where they gave Jillian mob boss vibes since one of the examples for The Matriarch is a mob boss. The amazing details were basically all their idea.

After getting it here is kinda how I picture everything about her working but this is just my headcanon, I hope people take her and do whatever their brains come up with for her. To me this version of Jillian runs a queer gang. Their all about bashing back and smashing the system. She is a very proud mom of her kids wearing stuff they made for her. Each color of bean represents a different kid she has taken under her wing. The eye patch was made by a sweet daughter of hers as well and the bracelets were gifts from her oldest daughter. She rips off the rich and gives back to the queers posing as a CEO or something to explain the luxuries her organization affords people.

Her family mechanic is her right hand in the mob, one of her older kids and her wife. Jillian has Been around from her experience living on the streets and traveling for jobs and warm food. Then she has In The Family due to her crime family being a known force that is not to be fucked with.

Anyway, that was my idea for the iconic here. Have you played The Matriarch, if you have what were they like? Do you have any ideas for one or been in a game with one? Did the Iconic art give you any ideas like it did for me? I'm also just always happy to hear about any TSL OC, let me know in the replies and stuff.

If you enjoyed this or anything else I've wrote, consider subscribing to my patreon to help me make more good lesbian and trans art. https://www.patreon.com/AlexisSara

[weatheringwildstorm]

I know, the main point of this blog is to talk about the continuity of WildStorm Universe as it was from ’92 – ’11… but I really like doing this compare and contrast thing! I just thought I’d have some fun, point out some of the references/differences from the old WSU to the last set of issues of “the Wild Storm” that came out last year.

New vs. Old Battalion / Jackie King & the Battalion Device We finally have Jackie King and the word “Battalion” used together. After using the device that Angie called “Scary AF” to take out Santini she calls it the “Battalion Device” and that’s as close to that code name as she’ll get.

New & What we don’t Know OK, sure there shouldn’t be too much that we don’t know to come at us in these final issues. But there is one thing to think on: Did the Daemon also have creatures like Jenny Mei Sparks in the Bleed to protect it from the Khera? I only say that because these two panels mirror each other.

The mission of the Khera is to get to a higher/better dimension where life isn’t so cold and brutal, why haven’t they used Bleed Space to get there? This might be the reason, but we’ll never know for sure.

Answers Apollo & Midnighter’s Real Names

While they find out their names before their Skywatch code names, they both decide they like the code names better, which cracked me up.

Terrance’s Kindness Saves Him

It’s a small moment, but because of the kindness extended to Angie in issue 1, she makes sure that I.O. gets Terrance out of NYC safe and sound.

So Much Death Santini, Slayton, Cray, Craven, Skywatch powered beings and various Skywatch & I.O. employees. Frankly, I’m surprised that Ivana gets away with only being arrested.

Skywatch & I.O. are both publically known In both the ultimate revenge by Jenny and Angie, Skywatch can be seen and tracked, and files about I.O. have been uploaded to the internet. There is now no longer a secret power struggle on Earth between the two entities. With Jackie in charge of I.O. and Henry too paranoid now that he can be seen, who knows what will go on between the two, but for the most part, they are partially neutered.

DCU Connections There’s mention of the Daily Planet again… every time it comes up and I don’t point that out again, someone does in the comments…

A Few Last Things

I sometimes forget how hilarious Ellis can be… and then we get this page. I miss him writing any version of Midnighter & Jenny.

And I can’t leave without saying how much I enjoyed Jon Davis-Hunts’ version of John Lynch. This panel in particular cracked me up simply because of the art.

Final Thoughts I’m always going to hate that the WildCats characters got written out of the ending. This feels pretty clear to me, and why not, they were to set to get their own 6 issue series to hopefully put a bow on their part of the overall story… but that’s just not happening. I would’ve loved for this to officially launch some sort of new Wild Storm universe. One where we’d get a 6 issue miniseries at lease once a year or more, either written by Ellis or guided by him. I still liked how “Cray” turned out and was really looking forward to whatever the “Zealot” title would be like. Not getting “WildCats” just seems like such a bummer, and a waste because we didn’t see them in the climax of “The Wild Storm!” I mean, yeah, in my heart of hearts I want to see this new version of the Authority with Ellis and Davis-Hunt on it, I want to see a Gen13 book with Lynch & Steven Rainmaker hunting down the kids and maybe a few teenage Gen13 style hijinks. But not getting “WildCats” stings, because I really loved this new take on the universe and even without my wishlist books, it seems lacking without that final miniseries. Are there a handful of unanswered questions? Sure, but not seeing Cole, Kanesha, John, and Adri in the three issues was a shame.

But ultimately, I have to commend Warren and Jon on a memorable and fantastic series that I thoroughly loved from start to finish! Thank you, sirs! And also all the rest of the crew like Steve Buccellato, Brian Buccellato, Ivan Plascenia, John Kalisz, and Simon Bowland that brought this series to life!

Where to find these issues:

Comixology: “The Wild Storm” issues 22, 23 & 24

More issue comparisons of the old WildStorm Universe to “The Wild Storm.”

WSU vs. the Wild Storm 22, 23 & 24 I know, the main point of this blog is to talk about the continuity of WildStorm Universe as it was from ’92 – ’11… but I really like doing this compare and contrast thing!

[amintz1022-blog]

As Campbell students in Team PREPARE, a natural area of emergency preparedness for us to look at was in the area of campus safety. As a student coming from a big university like NC State's campus, I was eager to see how Campbell University compared in terms of their safety plans and proactive planning for emergencies. To learn more about NC State's approach beyond what I understood, I reached out to the head of emergency preparedness at NC State, Todd Becker. In my conversation with Todd, he expressed that a big push in their department was this idea of mission continuity. Simply put, it was the continuation of modifying and improving emergency preparedness plans not just at the university level, but more importantly as the department/college level within NC State. Seeing as there was no sign of this at Campbell that our group could find, we decided to make this our focus for advocacy. 

Our first step was to reach out to the campus community leaders at CU. Our group met with Dr. Bazemore, Head of Campus Safety and Preparedness, in early September to express our concern, our desire to advocate for improved emergency preparedness and to gauge ideas from him so we can build off the work that is already in place and encourage this mission continuity across all departments at Campbell. In the process of learning behind the scenes workings of campus preparedness, Dr. Bazemore expressed his concern about the backlash received by students surrounding the decision the university makes in emergency situations. This showed a disconnect in this mission continuity goal as the backlash results from lack of knowledge of all campus does to keep their students safe. This information is free for students to see but few know where to find it. To combat this issue, our group decided to educate at the source through developing a syllabus insert for all classes and a lesson plan to be implemented in the first year CUFS class.

Our aim in developing these materials was to hit all diverse populations at Campbell, whether undergraduate, graduate, on-campus or commuter. The syllabus insert gives basic information about campus safety including the website, how to set up alerts on your phone and locations of various evacuation points. This would be included in all syllabi that any student at Campbell would receive. This policy of including this text in the syllabus would give every student the opportunity and education they need to feel prepared on campus and utilize safety tips provided to them. This also promotes mission continuity by giving all students and professors a chance to see how campus safety is run and how Campbell acts in certain situations. The professors would also promote mission continuity by filling in certain sections of the syllabus with the best meet-up locations and procedures for specific classrooms and buildings. 

To encourage this mission continuity when students enter Campbell, we also developed a lesson plan for the first year CUFS class for professors to go through the campus safety website with students. This included a procedure for emergency and non-emergency situations, personal safety tips, overviewing Campbell's decision making the process for adverse and time for students to sign up for campus alerts. All information that we placed in our lesson plan was taken from the already approved text on the campus safety website. The thought behind this was to make it easier to implement since all the text in the lesson had already been preapproved to be shared with students. We simply wanted to change how first-year students received this information first. The hope was also that by having a class for students about campus safety, that the students would share this class with their parents as well to put them at ease about their children being on campus. 

In a follow-up meeting with Dr. Bazemore, he expressed how impressed and proud he was of our group and what we created. He was excited to bring both items to the advisory board to be implemented in Fall 2020. He seemed confident that it would be something that would be easy to implement and would impact the amount of backlash they receive from students and parents following emergency situations. We are planning to have lunch with him into the spring semester to follow up on how the implementation of our project is going. We considered this a great success. 

In reflecting on this advocacy project, it would have been easy for our group to do the bare minimum with this project. We could have thought of an idea on our own and developed a plan without involving anyone at the campus level, just so we could get the credit we needed. It would have been easy to think that our group of 5 in one semester couldn't do that much to impact our campus safety. This was an important lesson I learned through this project. Campus safety as a whole can be very overwhelming to think of. However, when it's broken down and taken care of one piece at a time, the smaller goals are easier to accomplish and will affect the great population of Campbell in the end. I was also proud of our team for creating something that costs the university no money and was easy to implement. It built off the ideas and concern of Dr. Bazemore as well so we knew we were addressing a real concern on campus shared by staff and students. I’m excited to see how this will be implemented at Campbell and what this project means for the campus safety initiatives at Campbell University.

Special shoutout to our wonderful GA Kanesha who stepped in to help our group as our preceptor was out welcoming his new daughter into this world! 

[smbajorek-blog]

R3. Develop strategies to prevent and respond to occupational health effects and safety risks of key industries in rural communities

Earlier this semester Team Farmworker had the incredible opportunity to host a health fair for migrant farmworkers and nursery workers. We spent weeks planning and talking to our preceptor about how the fair should be run and what topics to cover. Balbina, a worker at the North Carolina Farmworkers Project, got in contact with the nursery workers and discussed with us what the workers were most interested in learning about. As a group we decided to focus our efforts on three main areas: nutrition, sexual education and cancer. To prepare for the event we studied our topics and came up with various games involving health education. Additionally, as a thank you for attending our health fair we prepared a meal for the workers including: 6 large trays of baked ziti (we had leftovers for days), dinner rolls, salad and more!

Finally after weeks of preparation September 20th, was here and it was time for our health fair. A family of nursery workers who lived close to the nursery graciously allowed us to use their yard and home to host our health fair. Our preceptor and many of the members of the NCFWP joined us to help set up the fair and assist with translating. As the finally touches were being put together for the fair we were all nervous about how the event would go and how the workers would receive us. However, these worries quickly dissipated as people began to show up to the fair and speak to us! Overall, probably somewhere between 30-40 people showed up and they were all so thankful to have us come out to talk to them.

For the fair we split up into groups of two to man our educational stations. James and Wrenn were in charge of our nutrition and chronic disease station. They handed out information on the importance of good nutrition and exercise and facilitated a discussion about the workers current habits. One of the handouts at this station was a paper that discussed setting nutrition and exercise goals for the future in order to help the workers become healthier. The discussion then transitioned to prevention and management of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Multiple workers in attendance suffered from diabetes, but were unsure of how the disease actually worked in the body. James and Wrenn were able to inform them about the disease process and also counseled the workers on the importance of medication adherence.

Kanesha and Ashley had the pleasure of discussing sexual education with the workers. They created a game of peligro (or jeopardy in Spanish) that focused on the importance of safe sex, contraceptions, and STDs. The game format helped to make a more sensitive subject easier to talk about. Kanesha and Ashley helped to clear up many misconceptions about the transmission of STDs especially from mother to child. This station was important because it gave the workers important information that they could then use to share and educate their children.

Finally Jennah and I were the dream team covering all things cancer. We prepared information in Spanish to share with the workers about the most prevalent types of cancer in men and women, taking specially consideration in to their occupational hazards as well. I created the masterpiece known as El Hombre de Cancer (The Cancer Man) to help make the station more interactive. We received many excellent questions at our station about causes of cancer and means of prevention. Lots of the questions involved occupational hazards that they are exposed to almost everyday. The workers asked about the effects of sun exposure in causing cancer as well as pesticide exposure and even asbestos. We were able to counsel them on how to reduce their risk of cancer by using protective masks, long sleeves, sunscreen, etc. Overall, however, I was amazed in the disparities in health education this population is facing. Many of their questions seemed like commonplace knowledge to me, but it made me realize how little education they have received on the topics. We fielded questions that I had never thought about like, “Does sunscreen or dirt particles cause cancer?” It was an incredible and humbling experience to get to speak with and educate these workers. Jennah and I even had the opportunity to examine a mole on a farmworkers back because she was worried about it potentially being cancerous after hearing our talk. This especially made me feel proud to be a public health student and made me feel like what I was doing actually could have an impact on peoples’ lives.

We closed our event with the meal we had prepared and a time of socialization. Getting to speak with and hang out with all these amazing, hard-working individuals was an amazing experience. I was even challenged to a hot pepper eating contest by a 9 nine year-old, Hector, (I wasn’t going to report whether or not I won this event… but I totally did). Thanks to the help of Amy and generous donors we were able to send the families home with general hygiene products like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, etc. Also thank you to Morgan, Shaniqua and all the members of the NCFWP who helped us host this wonderful event. The event was a huge success and I feel like our team was truly able to connect with the farmworker community and make a difference. #TeamFarmworker